Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

- Haven't touched NPT in a week, though I've been poking at other things that don't actually have due dates. Oops. ^_^;;;

- Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream mixed with chocolate almond milk makes the best freaking milkshakes ever. Just sayin'. (It's probably roughly the same with regular chocolate milk, but the almond is what I had on hand, so.)

- The USB game controller I bought specifically for The Walking Dead? Also works with my PSP emulator. *screech* Which makes Persona 3 about 1000 times easier to navigate, let me tell you. I would say that this is clearly the mark of the end of any productivity I might've had this summer except for one thing: my emulator crashes pretty much anytime I've actually managed to do anything useful, before I can save. >_<

- Finished Natsume- four seasons and two OVA's. I'll be honest with you, I was starting to get bored with it toward the end because it's the same thing every episode. Overall fairly enjoyable, and certainly not the worst thing I've ever seen, but meh. (I did come away from it shipping Natsume/Natori and Natsume/Tanuma. Mostly Natsume/Natori. Fuck, they weren't subtle about that, were they?)

- Also finished Akuma no Riddle. I'm... not sure what to think? I'm sitting here trying to decide what I should rate it on MAL, and I don't know. The whole thing was kind of meh, and then the last episode was a huge WTF. I think I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. Ehhhh I think 5/10 is fair.

- Debating watching Free! again before the second season starts... probably a bad idea though, I already have enough new stuff I'm trying to get through to justify re-watching something. Not like it has a complicated plot or anything. XD

- "Summer hours" start for the library as of July 1st, which cuts the time I can spend there as a safe place to avoid dealing with people I don't want to deal with. Ungh. I suppose that means more time at home reading manga and playing games and watching things that I've downloaded previously? XD

- I'm actually getting a bit of a farmer's tan on my arms from walking to the library all the time in t-shirts. XD Oops? Kind of weird, because I burn quickly, so I don't generally tan. (Well, that and I'm a homebody/don't like heat, so I usually stay inside most of the summer. XD)

...I was going to go out today for internet/grocery shopping, but it's like -20F with the wind. Um. No. *hides under the covers*

- You know, I guess I do still owe you guys a legit update. So what have you guys missed? Not a whole lot, just school work and me being boring and flailing about finals and grades and stuff. Ended up with a 4.0 for the semester, which was basically a small miracle because I fucked up and never turned in one of the essays for Multicultural Lit, so I was sweating bullets on that one. Whatever, it all ended up okay and that's what counts.

- Otherwise, I've just been chilling out, doing some cleaning, watching stuff, playing stuff, you know. I finally beat the stupid tree in Suikoden IV a couple of weeks ago, so that's done. (Reinhold is a lifesaver- basically, I trained with him until I could reliably beat him every time, plus a little. I think Hero was at level 70 or something by then?). I'd rented Hakuouki from Gamefly and quickly determined that it's something I would appreciate better in anime form. As a video game? No. Too little choice and it's really difficult to follow what's happening, at least for me. I'm slowly working on playing through The Walking Dead on Steam so I can play the new episode with my choices intact (and I've read that as long as you've connected the game to the internet at some point, it'll save your achievements and load them up for when you're connected again. We'll see if that actually works). Next up is... I dunno, Dragon Age, maybe.

- I've been watching a couple of random things. A few eps of Hakuouki, which I do in fact enjoy more as an anime, though it's still not great. There are way too many characters that I have absolutely no hope of remembering the names of. I'm more actively working on Kuroko no Basket season 2, what I have of it anyway. For some reason, it's not annoying me nearly as much as season 1 did, at least so far.

- Mostly, at least the last few days, I've been reading. I'm terribly behind in Riordan's Olympus books- I only ever got as far as The Lost Hero, because that's what was out at the time and I haven't kept up. And because it's been so long, I figured I should probably do some re-reading, so that's what I've been doing. I read through The Last Olympian yesterday, so I'm taking a break today before digging back in tomorrow. I love to read, but there IS such a thing as too much of a good thing. ^_^;;;

- My mom FINALLY went back to work a few weeks ago. Things don't seem any better financially (I'm still giving her money hand over fist that I don't really have, basically), but I'm really hoping it starts to ease soon now that she's getting a full paycheck again. It has to.

( Computer Related, cut for those not interested )

- I downloaded an app that will keep track of my video games on my phone for me (like the book one and the dvd one), so I can hopefully avoid accidentally purchasing something I already have. Not even close to done- I still have my DS/3DS/GBA/GB/PC/etc games to put in, of which I have many- and I'm already up to 80. I could throw up. Seriously. How did that even happen?

Anyway. This is quite long enough, especially since I can't really edit very well in here. Hopefully there aren't any major readability issues. XD Later!

☁ BG- It's um, going. Sort of. There is a not even half baked idea, and there are words, at least? We'll see. <_<

☁ It's been BRUTALLY hot and humid for the last week or so, but thankfully it's about 15 degrees cooler today and the humidity is supposed to FINALLY break overnight, last I heard. Thank god. Seriously, the other day it was fucking 97 with a heat index of 106. And yes, I know to some people that's not a big deal, but I live in freaking upstate NY. IT'S A BIG DEAL HERE. When it's hotter here than in Miami? Or AUSTIN? There's something wrong. I saw a thing on facebook the other day where somebody was like, "I think NY weather is broken" and that about covers it. It was seriously hellish. Kelly went up to the boyfriend's house last night (she even tilted her fan towards me before she left, heh), so I took the opportunity to strip down to my underwear and slept that way. I woke up feeling nice and cool, it was GLORIOUS.

☁ Speaking of heat, my laptop has... not been dealing with it well. Like it turned itself off several times the other day because it was overheating. I'm not entirely sure whether it's the heat/humidity or whether it's something more serious, like the laptop is dying, but in the meantime I'm attempting to find my cooling mat and taking "keep temperature down" measures- blew out the vents/fan/everything I can get to, energy consumption is set to power saver, the battery has been taken out, have the vents pointed at my fan, and I'm trying to run as few things as reasonably possible. Right this split second it's running around 150, which is pretty normal, but again, that's with all that stuff going on AND it's cooler today, soooooo I dunno. I really don't want to buy a new laptop. :/ (Mostly I don't want Windows 8) It wouldn't be AS big of a deal, considering I have the netbook, but home internet hasn't worked on the netbook ever since the cable company changed our router box. :/ I copied a bunch of stuff to the external HD anyway, in any event.

☁ It's mostly been too hot to clean really, but I did get the giant pile of crap in front of the closet cleared out, so I can actually- gasp- get in it now. Shocking, I know. In theory, that should make it easier, but now that I don't have a clear directional goal (like "get to the closet"), I'm feeling a little lost. But I guess... as long as I keep chipping away at it, it doesn't matter, really.

☁ Anime: Not a whole lot happening there. I knew I'd burn myself out eventually, because that's what I -do-, and it seems like that's what's happened. I'm still watching the new stuff as it comes out (Free is still fun, Brothers Conflict is still terrible, Silver Spoon I haven't really made up my mind about yet), and I managed to watch another ep of Tsuritama (it's still weird), but that's really about it. But this is normal. I'll cycle through some other media for a while before I come back to inhaling anime again. ^_^

☁ I did watch a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, so I'm now a few episodes into series 5 now. After seeing a few episodes with 11... I think I like him. :D Also of interest- as 11, Matt Smith is incredibly dorky looking. And not in a good way. He's apparently had a haircut, and he doesn't even look like the same person. Turns out he's totally adorable in a cute nerdy sort of way! O_O *was not expecting that*

☁ Oh, and I played The Walking Dead special 400 Days thing (I don't know if I mentioned it here, but I purchased the download for my xbox, but I won't do that again for season 2- I just don't have the hard drive space on that machine. I'll have to wait on season 2 until they put a disk out. Sadface.) My overall reaction was that I wish they'd picked one or two characters and stuck with them, instead of introducing five in such a short time span. You didn't really get to know anybody, really- though I like what I saw of Wyatt and Russell. Of course, those were the two that decided to opt out at the end. Argh. >_< So I actually have to go through it again... which is okay, because I did some stupid ass shit with Wyatt anyway. Seriously. There's a point where you have the option to try and drag this half-dead guy back to your car or leave him to get eaten by walkers, and for some ungodly reason I was like, yeah, let's drag him. Kelly was watching me play and was like, ".....what are you DOING?" "I DON'T KNOW, OKAY?" Which I guess... is one of the most interesting things about the game, really, since they give you no time to think about your decisions- you just have to go on your gut instinct. I tend to not always think things through to potential consequences, and my decisions definitely tend to lean more towards mercy and helping whoever I can when possible. I'd give examples, but spoilers. :P Which... yeah, can result in some really stupid choices as far as keeping myself/my group alive and safe. Whoops? XD

And on that note, I may or may not lie down for a bit because I have a migraine that doesn't want to go away (usually only napping cures those), and then it's some grownup stuff like laundry and figuring out what to make for dinner, and cleaning. Hopefully working on/finishing this thing for BG. Maybe. XD

This will be pretty quick, I promise! Just really trying to not post monster entries ALL the time. :P

☁ If my calculations are correct, and I'm pretty sure they are, I'm going to have a 4.0 GPA for midterms. FUCKING RIGHT. I just have to keep it there. ^_^;;; (Oh, and the tests I was freaking out about, Western Civ and Gender & Lit? 97 and 98, respectively. This always seems to happen to me. XD)

☁ Caved and got the 3DS XL. It's blue and humongous. I can't get over how big it is. I also got a Yoshi carrying case which included a couple of syluses (what IS the plural of stylus, anyway? Syluses? Styli? Meh.) and a screen protector for the touch screen, so that was pretty cool. Also picked up Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance and Zelda Ocarina of Time. Whoops? I've played a little of Zelda and it's already pissing me off. I've never played Ocarina of Time, though, so...

Best thing about it so far, though, is the music player. Messing with Re: Your Brains so that it sounds like chipmunks: awesome. ZOMBIE CHIPMUNKS FTW!

(Also, if anyone would like to add me, friend code is 1650-1537-2442. Just sayin'. :P)

Yes, I forgot about the entry again today, how could you tell? XD

-Obviously, internet has returned as of very late last night. I kind of thought it would end up like that, buuuuut better safe than sorry, right? Or something like that. Of course, it would help tremendously if I wouldn't blank on doing online stuff.

-While I did go get my school check yesterday, I didn't go to the bank this morning in favor of sitting in bed reading. Whoops. XD

-Also, I would really appreciate it if the muses would actually stick around long enough for me to finish a story before switching around on me. I've had Kaga in my head, which is great for something I already had in the queue. Today? Waya shoved him out of the way. -_- I'm like, HELL, you guys, seriously? And of course the Waya bunny is something I've been sitting on and haven't started yet. This is one of the many reasons I can never finish anything, ugh.

-Persona 4 is still pissing me off. I worked on a boss for an hour, was ALMOST done with him, and he killed me. Ungh. I actually threw the controller in a minor temper tantrum. ^_^; (There's a rug in the living room, the controller is fine.) I ended up going, fine, screw you, I'm going to work on social link stuff then. And I did. I may or may not work on it tomorrow, I don't know, I'm getting pretty :/ about the whole thing, to be honest.

Aaaaand I have to wrap this up. Tomorrow! \o

First things first- yes, I'm still alive, in case anyone was wondering. I kept meaning to post and I just... didn't. And then I was sick for about a week (still fighting the tail end of it, but at least I can breathe now) and basically lost that entire week. So! Another long collection of random updates and things that have amused me lately, in no particular order. Ready?

☁ (Leaving this one uncut for importance) Figured I'd pass this on just in case- I got a phishing scam in my email the other day, pretending to be paypal. Something about my account being limited and they needed me to open an attachment and send it back to them with the info they needed. Pffft. Yeah, right. I checked paypal just in case I was being overly cynical and of course everything was fine with my account, so the email got reported. Thought I'd put it out there that this is making the rounds. I think everyone on my flist is intelligent enough to not fall for it, buuuuuuuut it did look fairly official and everyone has off days, sooo better safe than sorry. ^_^;

( Epic length and also a video embed. You've been warned. :P )

Soooooo hopefully it won't be another month plus before another entry. Independence Day falls on a Wednesday this year, so I actually have it off- probably going to spend it with Stef's family. Should be interesting.

I really should write up a real update, but first, I want to talk about something else- my day from Tuesday. I had my placement test for school, and the day was... well, to put it kindly, a series of unfortunate events. There were a couple of points where it didn't suck, but those were few and far in between, and overall, it was just a truly terrible day. It's actually almost comical how things just kept happening. XD In list form:

( Ver and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day )

---

Meanwhile, yesterday? Aside from the fact that I was still running short on sleep (I did get about 5-5 1/2 hours though, so even that was an improvement), it couldn't have been any more different. THANK GOD. I approached the day simply hoping I wouldn't get lost, raped, or killed, so I'll grant you that the bar was set pretty damn low, but still. XD Also in list form!

( Ver and the Not Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day )

Okay, I really have to go. Work and all. Hopefully I'll get my shit together enough to post about something that isn't school in the next few days. :D

Real entry coming eventually, but in the meantime, I have seven topics from troisroyaumes  to talk about, so here we go!

( Seven Topics Meme! )

Comment if you want topics and I'll try to come up with things that aren't totally stupid. :D

☁ For anyone into nail polish: Zoya has a fabulous promo going on until Monday, details here. I'm still trying to decide what I'm getting. It's so hard to choose! The two that have gone into my cart and stayed there, though, are Dannii and Suvi, so I'll definitely be getting those as the freebies.

☁ The last thing from Gamefly was Blue Dragon. The first thing I noticed was that it actually gives you a language option, so you can play it in the original Japanese with English subs. I wish more games would have that option- a lot of JRPG players would prefer it, actually. That being said, it was interesting, but I found this a bit clunky. You end up searching in every little corner, crevice, plant, etc. all the time for money and items... maybe this will be less of an issue later in the game when I'm assuming this stuff is more available, but to start with it was irritating. Battle animations were laggy and took WAY too long. I really disliked the character designs- very oldschool anime style in the worst way. It's certainly not a bad game- I would probably not have any problem buying it, just not at $20. Though I see you can get it for around $10 new on Amazon, including shipping. Now THAT'S more like it.

☁ Beyond Good and Evil arrived, which is awesome because I've wanted to play it for FOREVER. We shall see~!

☁ Posting fic on AO3 is going well- THERE IS FINALLY LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. It's probably still going to take me another week or so to finish, give or take, but eh. I don't write particularly long pieces, usually, but there's more of them than I ever realized. No wonder I've never successfully posted a proper mirror. ^_^; Qem has been going through and sticking a kudos on pretty much everything, which is really cool of her. I'm kind of in awe of it, actually- like I said, there's a lot of them. That takes a special kind of dedication. XD

☁ Anyone like wine? I'm looking for some suggestions possibly. Seems like it's been a thing lately, and as most of what I've tried is disgusting... thought maybe I'd try to get some opinions. :D I'd rather not do red wine, but I'll admit I'm biased. The one and only time I've had red, it tasted like cough syrup. Blech. My alcohol tastes tend to run very sweet, and wine is no exception. Hence, dry is not a good idea. SUGAR IS GOOD. Thoughts, anyone?

☁ Kind of weird- I took a guy's passport, right? Note that said guy was probably in his 40's, Asian. He looked at the passport frowning and said to his wife, "I look Korean." I probably had a dumbfounded look on my face, because his wife then smiled at me and said, "He's Indonesian." (Or whatever it was- I unfortunately forgot where she said his heritage was. FAIL. XD) I was just like, "Er.... O_o" Racism, yay! XDDD

☁ On a related note, I was watching a thing of Carlos Mencia's, and he had this to say about racism in America: "We just fight with each other because we've got nothing better to do and we like drama." AHAHAHAHAHA. Interesting take, I have to say.

I have a few minutes to kill, so I might as well post this entry that's been sitting in notepad for three days, right? XD

( I really need to post more often so this doesn't happen... )

☁ The problem with regional/cultural foods is that the little secrets that are traditionally used to cook such food can be left out of the cooking instructions. It's simply taken for granted that people KNOW certain things. I recently learned this with basmati rice. I've been having a lot of trouble when trying to cook it, which drove me to google to try to figure out what was happening. Aside from the obvious option of "ur doin it wrong," I was thinking maybe there was something wrong with my rice cooker. This, of course, led me to this: You're supposed to rinse/soak it first. Honestly? I'd never heard of such a thing before. I've made rice of both the brown and white variety with absolutely NO problems. So this was strange to me, but I tried it anyway, with a mixture of both white and brown basmati rice just to see, plus a little oil for good measure. And you know what? It freaking works. I think I could've used more water for the brown (should've thought about that, regular brown rice needs more water too), though it's still edible. Just a little tougher than I'd like. The white was PERFECT. Go figure.

(Also, Ai: ♥♥♥♥♥. I tried the chicken rice thing you gave me- holy CRAP that's good.)

☁ In other food news, this recipe for stuffed shells sounds AMAZING (and ridiculously low in calories- just under 83 calories per shell!) and I'll have to try it at some point with a few swaps. But I'm used to doing that sort of thing due to my tastes. ^_^

☁ LEGO Harry Potter- Okay, it's cute, and the video scenes are funny. I'll give them that. Unfortunately, that's about all I can give them. The first thing that's a bit of an annoyance is that if you don't know the story, you will have absolutely NO IDEA what's going on. None. Obviously I know the story, so it's not a deal breaker by any means, but it's still irritating. The deal breaker? It's BORING. From what I can tell, you basically go around and collect shit. Which is okay at first, but it gets old really fast. I found it really disappointing, to be honest.

☁ Trying a brownie recipe I've had for a while but haven't attempted yet- white chocolate raspberry swirl. I'm not sure about this one. :/ For one thing, it uses more cream cheese than the freaking cheesecake ones, which is just strange. Also I have a naughty habit of tweaking recipes as I go, adjusting them for my own taste, and I'm afraid I put in too much raspberry extract. Meh. We'll see what happens when I bring the pan to work.

☁ I've been trying to think of what I can do for the pointless little "extra" in the holiday cards this year- especially since I didn't do any last year, because I waited too long. (Hence me thinking about it early.) I -think- I might have something... but we'll see. Experimentation will be needed. And a trip to Michaels.

☁ October 20th is Spirit Day- wear purple! I have to work (of course *eyeroll*), so I'll just be sporting nail polish and possibly earrings if I can find them. STILL COUNTS.

☁ Persona 4: The BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. The first thing that annoys me is that they have a building traits system that reminds me a lot of those harem games where you build particular stats to fuck a particular girl at the end. They even have the same kind of "day passing" system where you have to pick and choose what skills/relationships you want to enhance, at the cost of everything else. I don't like it in those kinds of games and I really don't like it here. The second thing that annoys me is that I was trying the game for Naoto, who I'd seen enough of in two different RP's to be interested in her character. Naoto, apparently, doesn't show up for quite a while, which is extremely disappointing. But I could've lived with all of that if it weren't for what happened to me last night. Seriously, I got a bit over 7 hours in and then discovered that I was totally fucked and would have to start over. Really, game? I would've totally RAGEQUIT (and believe me, I was FURIOUS) if it wasn't the principle of the thing. I went through again and saved Yukiko's sorry ass, so now I will happily send back the game and be glad to get rid of it. (Also I think I'm going to need a new PS2 controller soonish. The one I have keeps alternating between not working at all and going fucking berserk. You might guess that this didn't exactly help with my frustration levels, to put it mildly. XDDD)

Verdict? I'll watch the anime instead, thankyouverymuch. I enjoy the characters- Yosuke is my favorite so far (though the weird thing? His persona totally reminds me of this guy from Monsters Inc. Don't ask. I think it's the eyes? <_< ), and Kou and Daisuke are so hilariously gay for each other it's extremely entertaining. As are Chie and Yukiko. It's the gameplay that's driving me insane. I may regain interest once the anime is done, though. Who knows.

☁ I love being able to renew library books online. <3 Especially when I kind of forgot about them and got an email today going, "Uh, yeah, you know your books are due in two days, right?" XD Whoops. I could finish them in two days, no problem, the thing would be actually dragging my ass to the library before work. So... note to self. Finish those books this week so you can bring them back on Tuesday.

☁ Talked to Mr. Bossman about Thanksgiving week- I pretty much had to sell my soul just to get the weekend after Thanksgiving off, even though I'm allowed that vacation time. He also acted like I didn't even say anything about Thanksgiving, conveniently forgetting the fact that I work every god damn holiday for him. Oh, yeah, and he was trying to make me feel guilty for it the whole time. Sometimes Kerry is cool, but other times he can be a real asshole. Still have no idea what I'm going to do about the other three or so days of vacation time I'll have left. Damn. If I knew he was going to pull that shit, I would've taken it earlier. Maybe I should just not take it and let them pay me for the leftovers after New Years? Well, at any rate, I have the weekend after Thanksgiving off. At the cost of forfeiting random days off with probably no warning. Yaaaay.

☁ The Good: Worked on my room. Still needs some work, but it's loads better. I really have no idea how it gets looking like that. O_o
The Bad: I realized today that I have no idea where my phone is. Aaaand of course I can't call it because the stupid thing would be dead by now. (And yes, I tried anyway.) >_< I'm REALLY SUPER HOPING it's at work. Because if not... uh... I don't know. I guess we'll see.

☁ The new Donkey Kong Country- it's fun (I'm definitely purchasing it at some point), but it IS a bit of a departure from the previous ones, gameplay wise. Not being able to throw Diddy: fail. The difficulty level was also higher than I expected it to be, straight from the getgo. Then again, in all fairness, there are many levels in the original ones that I can play backwards and forwards at this point, so... they're easy to me NOW. Doesn't mean they were the first time I played them. XD I was always BOSS at the minecart levels and shooting barrels though, and the minecart level in the first world is DEFINITELY harder than those used to be.

If you like the first three, I think you'll like this one- if you've never played the first three, you can either get them for the GBA or download them to your Wii. I would suggest trying one of those first (my favorite is 2, personally), rather than spending the cash on the new one. $10 is better than $40, yeah?

☁ Okamiden- CUTEST. GAME. EVER. ADJKLSJDLK. (Here, have a trailer.) I totally hit "keep" on this one- it's only about 20 cents cheaper on Amazon anyway, so I might as well keep the cartridge that has my save.

Next up on the Gamefly queue: Uh, Kirby's Epic Yarn, apparently.

☁ Absolutely disgusting. There is NO excuse for this- the man physically assaulted a student. He should be in jail, and he shouldn't be allowed to work with children ever again. Period. You don't touch kids.

☁ Also I finally got Suikoden V back. I actually didn't end up having to ask- when I went up to Stef's last week, she was like, "Oh, here!" and handed it to me. She is apparently still working on Kingdom Hearts, which is fine. As long as her room didn't eat it, we're good. XD I think I'm going to have to restart Suikoden V, though, as I only remember bits and pieces of what the hell was going on. Buuuuut that's what I get for loaning the game out when I wasn't finished with it. :/

☁ I just found out about a really neat thing my library has- they're part of an online site that lets you download music, legally, for FREE. You're limited to three a week, and only what they've got (read: Sony), but hey. Free is free is free.

☁ There are, apparently, emulators that allow you to play GB, GBC, NES, and SNES games on a DS R4. O_o I don't know, somehow it just never occurred to me that you could do that? It's probably like the other R4 stuff- some of it works great and other stuff doesn't- but I tried a couple of games and they seem to be alright, though. Might be good for the stuff that Nintendo won't put in their online stores to purchase for current consoles. *cough*WhoFramedRogerRabbit*cough*

☁ I recently tried two new kinds of rice- well, not new really, but new to me. Jasmine rice, which is quite yummy though I wouldn't want to have it all the time; and Basmati rice, which I'd never even heard of before I saw it in the store a couple of days ago. The grains are really long so it almost looks shredded, and it tastes really freaking delicious. It doesn't even need any salt or sauce or anything. I think I need to find the brown version and buy a bag. :3

- Got my hair cut again after putting it off for a few weeks. It's the kind of short I've been trying to get and failing at (seriously, she used clippers on a lot of it XD) My mother's response to the haircut? "Why don't you just shave it off? You might as well at this point." ............................
*growl* Fuck you. Seriously. NOBODY ASKED YOUR GOD DAMN OPINION.

- Scored jeans at LB for 40% off, they're not flare or boot-cut, AND they're a size lower than what I got last time I bought jeans. Woo! I have no idea how I managed that, being that I haven't lost any weight and I'm not working out, so it's not like I've lost fat and gained muscle all of a sudden. Oh well. I'm certainly not going to complain. :D

- Also found volume 12 of Junjou Romantica, which I've been looking for. So! That one's totally caught up. \o/

- Level grinding in FFIII. What makes it suck even more than usual is that I'm kind of stuck where I am right now, due to story events, so I'm basically having to run up and down these stairs ad nauseum. UGH. Hopefully I can stop after one more level up and not get totally slaughtered by the boss.

- Apparently about a month ago, Konami put up a post on their Facebook group "What Konami game franchise would you love to see brought back?" I didn't read all 924 comments, but seriously? I did go 100 comments back, and all but TWO were along the lines of "SUIKODEN VI, DAMMIT!" *dies laughing* You think maybe they got the hint? Someone commented "Looks like Suikoden fans have made their own army now. :D" *dies more*

- Awesome video of Tom Felton on Conan- there was Harry/Draco discussion, and pictures! So funny, and he was so freaking cute when he literally turned PINK when they showed a couple of Harry/Draco photo manips. On the other hand, it did feel a bit strange having fandom acknowledged out of the blue like that, and on such a popular platform. And to think the actors actually read fanfiction and see fanart? Kind of like... er... what? O_o I don't know. It's a little too close to home for comfort. A great clip and interview, but just... made me feel a little like a bug under a microscope lens, if that makes any sense.

There's probably other stuff I should be talking about (like more work dramaz), but I don't feel like it. For now? MOAR SUIKODEN! You can safely just skip this entry if you're not interested. :D

( Last time, you guys, I swear. You won't have to hear any more about this. )

I haven't decided what to do now- part of me wants to jump into Suikoden III and give that another shot, but... I kind of want a break, too. There are things to watch and fics to write! I should probably take at least a week from it and just chill, at any rate. ^_^;

☁ Been in more of a reading mood than a video game mood the last few days. Which is fine- I have a lot of unread books- but I strongly suspect that I'm procrastinating. I know I'm getting to the end of Suikoden II and I don't want it. ;~; As it is, I explored the first available bad ending- Shu slapping Riou is FANTASTIC. Also there was a little bit of confusion on seeing Georg. Suikoden timelines are confusing. Somehow I thought V took place not that long after IV, but uh. Definitely not the case, apparently. (Eternal love for Suikosource and their timeline. <3)

That being said, there's apparently a theory that the timeline jumps around from game to game because we're actually following Viki's teleportations, so it's in chronological order to her. It's as good of a reason as any. ^_^

I should probably quit procrastinating, though. After all... there's still III that I never got very far into (I believe it was at the first character change, as a matter of fact). I should probably give it another shot. ^_^;;; Or IV, which I'm at the end and can't seem to beat the last god damn boss (there's no way a TREE should kick my ass that badly! >(  ). Or V, which I was about halfway through and stupidly loaned it out, and have yet to get it back (along with the first Kingdom Hearts). Meh.

☁ Bills: I always think the credit card(s) are due about 2 weeks earlier than they actually are, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because it means I've never been late for a payment. Bad because right around the 20th of every month I freak out because I think I've missed the due date. I have the 15th stuck in my head for some reason when it's the 28th. I should probably stop that. XD

☁ It's been brought to my attention that TokyoPop/Blu has gone under. I wonder if I should hurry up and get the rest of the series that I'm missing? ^_^;;; Looking through my manga, though, makes me realize that I was following a lot more of their stuff than I knew. Five, as a matter of fact: Loveless, Junjou Romantica, Gravitation, Fruits Basket, and Chibi Vampire. Three of those are complete, but unfortunately, those are the ones I'm most behind in. Fortunately, the two that aren't are popular enough that they'll likely get picked up by another publisher. If I was to get everything that I needed up through current volumes, I'd need to buy... 34 volumes. Christ. (For the curious: 1 Junjou, 11 Gravi, 13 Furabura, and 9 Chibi. I'm up to date on what's been released of Loveless in English.) Out of those, though, the ones I care about the most are the Fruits Basket, Junjou Romantica, and Chibi Vampire, in that order. I still have $50 worth of gift cards to Barnes and Noble from Christmas- maybe I should use those to work on that. Then again, they're a hell of a lot cheaper on Amazon...

☁ Suikoden II:
-Jowy: *SOB* I think I know what he has in mind, but. He is Wrong. I know he's wrong because this is Suikoden and the Hero always wins in the end, goddammit. You should give up and run away because you're postponing the inevitable, my ass. *growls*
-A case for frequent saving- in the middle of a random battle, the game froze. Due to game events, I hadn't been able to save in quite a while... plus I stupidly just hadn't when I had the chance. I had to do from the Greenhill Ghost incident to successfully escaping with Teresa twice. GAH. >_<
-That being said, I was reminded quite vividly of why Flik is Awesome. You know he just did something seriously impressive if even Luc admitted that it wasn't bad.
-Kind of funny, the whole time Nina was going after Flik, I was thinking, Viktor would never let Flik live this down if he knew. I'm so glad he got to see it. Viktor's immense amusement and Flik's reaction of RAGE was totally worth doing pretty much half the Greenhill arc again. <3
-Also Nanami freaking about the ghost and trying to include Pilika in the freakouts, while Pilika is all "?" was freaking hysterical.
-I was randomly thinking, for the characters that were also in the first game (with the exception of Viki, because I don't think she really even notices things like war going on around her. XD)... I have to wonder if most of them aren't thinking something like, "Another teenager with a true rune in his hand. How the hell do I keep ending up following these kids around?"
-Last one, I promise. I understand that with 108 playable characters, I'm not going to like all of them. But Sid? Really, Konami? The whole time you're recruiting him, he's being all creepy and the pickpocket kid with wings whose name I can't remember at the moment (Chaco?) was all "NOOOOoooooooooOOO!" and "Don't touch me!"
...
......
...........

It's incredibly disturbing that the Hero knowingly recruits a guy who's probably going to molest this kid. Just saying.

☁ Obviously with all of the Suikoden talk, I haven't really been watching too much of anything at the moment. Should probably stop that. I have a manga rec too that I should probably try to get to at some point. I don't read manga very often because when I do I tend to inhale a whole bunch at once and I burn myself out for a while. It's been about a month since the last time, though. Probably due. :P

☁ Pretty cool Mario theme. There's some other great stuff there too, and the guy can actually sing, so check it out. He talks about it at the end of the video I linked, but he's got his stuff on itunes, and all of the money goes to Japan aid, which is awesome.

☁ Cousin reminded me of Suikoden Tierkreis, so I've started that again as my "work break" game. Couldn't remember enough of where I was to continue on the old save, which sucks because I'd put over 30 hours into it, but what can you do. *sigh* I'd forgotten how god awful some of the voice acting is. There's no middle of the road with voice- they're either good or terrible, that's it. I also forgot how much of a religious overtone there is... but in this case, it has more of an anti-religion stance, so it's not anything overpowering. Oh, and I'm totally reminded that I was shipping Hotupa/Moana. So cuuuuute~ But then I love Moana anyway, she's freaking adorable. And Chrodechild! I'd say I would totally go gay for her if I, uh, wasn't already. I mean, seriously, look at this BAMF lady right here. I like Asad too, though, he's pretty awesome. Even if he's so obviously in love with Chrodechild and she just as obviously doesn't see him that way.

☁ Note to self- when making the cheesecake brownies, when the recipe says you need to do stuff in a separate bowl, they mean in a separate bowl. Turns out that mixing everything together... well, it still tastes good, but it ends up having a weird fudgy consistency instead of being the cakey brownie it's supposed to be. Good to know.

☁ Tried hummus for the first time. It's. Erm. Well, it's not BAD, but I wouldn't have the red pepper kind again. ^_^;;; Not a fan. Which I probably should've known because peppers are not my favorite things, whoops. Good thing it was only a small package with the hummus and some pita chips. I'd have to look at the flavors again, but probably something like garlic would be better.

☁ Half considering looking into RPing again somewhere, because I do miss it, but... eh. I'm not sure I want to go there. Plus I have no idea where I would app or who with or any of that. Meh. I should probably not bother.

( Little bit of work ranting- this is why I need a vacation. )

I really should be doing laundry, but pffft. Don't feel like it. I'm also really super tired, but rather than do the intelligent thing and go to bed, I'm just going to bore you all to tears instead. XD

- Been feeling bloaty and icky and exhausted lately, and I have no idea why. Spring is coming- that usually jazzes me up- so I don't know what's going on at the moment. Hrm.

- I realized quite unpleasantly that one of the evil plot bunnies I've been avoiding for MONTHS now (because it's wicked depressing and there's SO many things I could mess up)... could very well end up a  multi-chapter fic should I ever give in and write it. BAH. All the more reason to ignore that one. *glares at the bunny*

- Speaking of which, the bunnies have been weirdly active lately. This is good- to a point. It's not exactly helping me to post the backlog of fic, though. XD Also most of them are still things I don't want to write. Stupid bunnies. *grumbles* On the upside, the backlog of fic is decreasing, slowly but surely. Hopefully I should be finished with it sometime in the next year. >_<

- The ten year reunion for my original class is coming up. I've been invited. I didn't graduate with them, mind, but... ugh, ten years, seriously? Where did all that time go? I have no intention of GOING though. There's really... maybe a few people I would like to see, but that's about it, and I don't really think it's worth putting myself through the stress for. I'll admit that a big part of it is a high level of embarrassment on my part. I am certainly nowhere NEAR where I would like to be at this point in my life. Which yes, is kind of a sore point and I don't really feel like explaining to people how I've ended up in the gutter. It's just... bigger things were expected of me. I expected bigger things from me. So I think going to something like a reunion and having to show my general failure would just be torturing myself. If I at least had a date I could bring, that would be immensely better, but alas. Maybe by the time the 20th comes around, I'll not be completely mortified by the thought of having to explain my life to people I knew as a child.


( And for Jet- Suikoden II Thoughts So Far :P )

I went to bed and got back up again, so I figured I'd post this entry that's been sitting in notepad since yesterday. ^_^;;;

-Ugh. The first thing I've written since blind_go , and guess what came out? *headdesks repeatedly* No,  not one of the more serious bunnies I have sitting on my desktop. Of course not. Of COURSE I had to be pinged by a smutty suggestion. I don't think it's something I want to inflict on the internet- it's not just smut, but it's bad smut. Fandom really HAS twisted my brain, hasn't it? I swear to God I wasn't this dirty originally. D:

I did get another idea for original fic (brought on by a local news story, of all things), but it's another one of those "I'm not sure I want to write it" bits. God. Everything my brain comes up with lately is either porn or totally fucking morbid. GAH. >_<

-So cool! The fireworks one is neat too. There's a link somewhere to download a free fireplace screensaver, which I totally downloaded. It is the awesomest. :3

-Also, this was recently brought to my attention... I'm not a big fan of Kurt's character overall, but the kid that plays him seems really sweet, and his reaction to winning this award is just too cute. The cast had to prod him to get up, because he was in utter shock, and then after that it was like he kept waiting for someone to go, "Where are you going? That's not you, sit down." He's very sweet and naive. Hollywood is going to eat him alive.

-Have I ever mentioned that I hate snow? Yes? Well, then, I'm mentioning it again. I HATE SNOW. It wouldn't be so bad except we've been getting slammed this month... just storm after storm after storm. Plus it's been cold as all holy fuck up until yesterday. Seriously, guys? The low was -13 (-25 in Celcius) the other day. At least it's warmer for now- around 20 degrees. It's like a heatwave. What we've had is the kind of cold where you go outside and you can't BREATHE. The cold just steals all of the oxygen out of you. It's like your lungs suddenly shrink or something. Is it spring yet?

-Playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village finally. It's... humbling. Puzzles like this are not my strongest point, certainly, so it makes me feel a little dumb. ^_^;;; I've had to look up answers for puzzles more than I care to admit, and I figured out the "secret" of the village WAY before they told me, but it's interesting.

-I keep trying to get into The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan- I liked the Percy Jackson books, and I thought this would be like Percy Jackson with Egyptian mythology... oh how wrong I was. I can't even quite put my finger on what's wrong, aside from the little things that bother me, I just find myself drifting off to do something else all the time while I'm reading because I'm BORED. Bah. I'm determined to finish it, I'm just not sure how long it's going to take.

-Purchased a slow cooker and a cheap hand mixer in the past few weeks. Yep, definitely getting old. I figure I'd rather make little purchases here and there, rather than having to spend an obscene amount of money on all this stuff I need once I move out. Especially this one place that's in consideration- it's a lot more expensive than I'd like, which is why I haven't jumped all over it... however, it has no kitchen. Hence the slow cooker. I have an electric griddle that I purchased about a month ago, too, and of course I've had my rice cooker for a couple of years. Electric appliances that allow me to not require the use of a stove/oven are gooooooood. ^_^

That being said, I tried a recipe that was supposed to let me make cake in the crock pot- do not try this at home, kids. It was a complete disaster. The bottom burned and the top was still all cake batter. I ended up trying to pour the useable portions into a pan and sticking it in the oven. The cake is... passable. Not great. Might try it again sometime with just the oven and see if it's any better. On the upside, I can get decent macaroni and cheese out of the slow cooker. :D

-A friend that I haven't seen in some time, but am friends with on Facebook, sent me an invite to a gay ladies speed dating thing on Saturday. It's too short notice for me- if I'm to get a day off of work, I need to ask for it more than two days in advance- but it was nice that she thought of me, anyway. Although let's be honest, even if I didn't work weekends, I probably wouldn't go. I'm way too much of a social reject for that kind of thing. ^_^;;; Besides. There's trying to push myself a little out of my comfort zone and then there's throwing myself out of it completely.

Wow, 8am. Back to bed with me. <_<

Not so long between updates! Whee!

-blind_go  sign ups are a go! Anybody that's seen/read Hikaru no Go, go sign up! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D As usual, I have no idea what I'm going to write... but it's a shortfic round, so I'm sure I can come up with SOMETHING. ^^;;; I need to restart my Hikago watching, too. I got through episode 10 and stopped. I actually haven't really been watching too much anime recently. I need to stop that, I'm SO behind. ;_;

-Speaking of anime... did anybody else know that they actually made a third OVA for Boku no Pico? God. Talk about wanting to stab yourself in between the eyes with something very, very sharp... because, of course, in the interest of completion I had to watch it. I'm clearly a masochist. And somehow it ended up being even WORSE than the first two, and I didn't think that was possible. *shudder* Traumatized. For. Life. Just saying.

-Don't know if I told you guys, but my DS cracked in the middle. It still worked, but because of the crack, the top is working on getting separated from the bottom, and so I really needed to replace it. I mean, I've had the thing... eh, four or five years? Considering how much abuse it's taken, I certainly have no complaints about its lifespan. Anyway, got a shiny new BLUE one. :3 I've wanted one of those forever. The good thing is that now I don 't have to feel like I'm being horrifically indulgent getting a whole new one just for the color. XD This is LEGIT, dammit. Also I can keep the old white one and use it for travel~ That way if something happens to it in transit, it's not a big deal. :D

-I've been spending way too much money on game stuff recently... Kelly's boyfriend was selling his extra Xbox 360 (how do you even end up with two of those things, anyway? *baffled*) $100 without the hard drive... considering that I'd pay $150 in a shop for the same thing used, I figured it was too good to pass up. I gave him $20, so I need to give him the rest soon. $50 at the game store for a hard drive for the thing (20GB, because I'm probably never going to need anything bigger than that.) $70 for games. Guh. They didn't have Final Fantasy XIII, but they did have the two other games on my "MUST HAVE" list: Dragon Age and Fable II. Started Dragon Age before work yesterday, it's definitely interesting.  That's... actually what I'm going to be doing when I'm done with this. :3

-Last money related bit, I promise. I'm just really excited about this. XD I'll preface this by saying that I basically have no credit. It's this huge catch-22 that you need credit to get credit, which is why I've never been able to get a credit card for emergency purposes. However! I was in Lane Bryant the other day and they're always trying to push their store card... I've been rejected for it before, but what the hell, they give you a discount for trying. I was actually approved this time. O_o Not that I shop there a lot, and I have a limit of $100, but that's FINE. It's something to start with so I can actually start building my credit. \o/!!!! I'm so psyched.

-My older sister is driving us crazy. Thank god she's only here for a month. Okay, that's not a very nice thing to say, but seriously. I love her and all, but jeez.

-My dad and his wife apparently have a website that everybody else knew but me. I'm like... thanks guys. They have a sewing/alterations shop, which is totally weird thinking of my dad doing. He was always the techy type, not the sewing type. Eh. *shrug* There were no pictures or anything though, so I don't know what he looks like now. I was kind of curious. All of this... is not important, it's just a huge WTF for me.

-Colored my hair just for something different. It's a reddish brown... haven't decided whether I like it or not. We'll see. ^^

....weren't these entries supposed to get SHORTER? Bah. Okay, shutting up now. I have a book meme I keep meaning to put up, I should do that soon. XD

1. Dear Mother Nature: Can we get the rain to stop? Please? T_T It's really getting ridiculous at this point. It's been like... a month of rain. Seriously. Not a single day goes by without it raining at some point. On the upside, it's been a cool summer because of this, but... yeah. Really sick of it by now.

2. I splurged and got Wii Fit. It's interesting. I'm sore, but I know that's a good thing, especially since I'm so horrifically out of shape to begin with. I'm starting with 40 minutes a session and we'll go from there. With any luck, I'll stick with it. My first thing is that I want to lost about 15 pounds before Aki comes to visit- completely doable, since that's not until almost the end of August- I have a little under two months. We'll see what happens!

3. Also rented The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, since I'd been told that it was completely awful and it made me curious. It was... meh. Not really worth the hate, but not really anything of particular note, either. *shrug*

4. Progress is being made on the cleaning front.  It's still an utter disaster, but there's been an improvement. I can actually see a patch of carpet in front of my bed! XDDD This is good. Going through my clothes should help too, since there's at least a decent portion I know I can throw out. I can get rid of all those cheap shirts I bought for work that have holes in them now, since the district manager has decided that photo has to wear the same shirts as the front store. Along with the lab coats- because clearly the coats aren't hot enough, we need to add a thick collared shirt to that. *sigh* But yeah. So that's a bunch of crappy shirts I can get rid of, at least. When I get around to actually going through all my clothes. >_<

5. I don't know if I told you guys, but I got locked out of my apartment a couple of weeks ago for an hour and a half during a storm because I didn't have my keys with me and Kelly didn't leave the side door open as requested. I wasn't completely out in the open at least, there's roofed open spaces between apartments so I was dry, but it was still an unpleasant experience. Well... I now have a spare key that will live in my work bag. That way, this should not happen again. SCORE. Now as long as I don't take it out of there and remember it's there if/when I need it, we'll be golden.


All in all, not a bad couple of days off, and at least I've gotten some stuff done (including laundry, which is currently in the dryer). I just need to keep this up. ^_^

YAY. Days off are good. <3 Staying in and recharging ones batteries? Even better. ^_^

1. I think I'm mostly better with the exception of a lingering sore throat. Yay. Well, and headaches that don't seem to be going away, but that could be a combination of factors. My hair is too long, for one. Yes... I do get migraines if my hair gets too long. Ugh. I also need to get my eyes checked. May need a new prescription. Also overdue for the girl bit, so that may be playing a hand in it too.

2. Got linked to this really cool site- The Backloggery. Basically it's like MAL for video games. The idea is to keep track of what games you have, what you've finished, what you're still working on- so that you can go through your backlog and finish games that you already own. A fantastic way to not only keep track of things, but to remind yourself why you don't need that new game right now- you already have xx games unfinished! However, I didn't need to know exactly how many games I have....... and I haven't even started putting in ds, advance, or snes games. *headdesk*

On that note, I've picked up Suikoden IV again, since I've had that almost finished for... well, forever. And I'm reminded quite vividly why I hate levelling up. *sigh* It's so BORING. And where I'm at level wise, it takes freaking FOREVER to go up just one level. And I can't go anywhere fun to level up- I'm stuck where I am, so basically, I have to go up and down these stairs from hell fifty billion times to go up one level. I'M SO SICK OF THESE FUCKING STAIRS! *growls* Can't I just magic myself to level 70? Pleeeeeeeeease? I also really, really hate the final boss. There is no reason a freaking TREE should be kicking my ass like this at level 63. Granted, I missed the final hammer and so can only sharpen weapons to level 12 instead of 16, but COME ON.

3. I have been successfully keeping my checkbook balanced since Friday. Score! This has two purposes. One, I'll actually... *gasp* KNOW what's in my account instead of a vague "Well, I've got to have at least this much..." Two, it's a way of tracking my spending so I can see EXACTLY where my money's going. And trim accordingly. ^_^ For now, my only reaction is, holy crap I use my bank card A LOT. XDDD

4. Started watching Merlin. First episode down......... eh, I dunno. I'll keep watching it for now, but there are several things that bother me. What doesn't bother me? For whatever reason, it brings out the snarky comments, which is highly entertaining. We'll see what happens. *shrug*

5. Apparently Aki's friend pegged me as gay the first time I met her. *sigh* Well, it's not the first time that's happened when I've met someone. Which sort of baffles me. I'm... more on the androgynous side, yeah, but I'm not butch by any stretch of the imagination. And it's not like when I first realized I was gay and so wore something rainbow-colored all the time- that stuff has been in the back of my jewelry box for several years now. Do I have a sign on my forehead that says "DYKE" or something? Jeez. XD I'm just curious.

1. Boo for having to work on my day off. Granted, it's only five to ten, but still. Kind of the last thing I need right now, especially with me getting sick again (fevers are fun, yay -_-). And while I understand that Jeremy's sick (which is why I have to go in), it sort of irritates me at the same time. I'm glad he has the luxury of being out for a week plus when I've been sick for over three weeks now and haven't been able to take a single sick day, and actually end up working more because he's out. To that degree? My sympathy is severely limited. *sigh* ......................................... god, I'm jealous of a high school kid, what the hell is wrong with me?

2. blind_go : Still thinking about it. Probably going to end up signing up and then failing. ^_^;;;

3. Suikoden: Tierkreis in a week! SO EXCITED! I'm so, so thrilled that a Suikoden game is going to be on the DS. It's like....... one of my all time favorite video game series. Whether this game sucks or not is a different matter, but still. (I'm disappointed that Viki isn't going to appear in this game. She's annoying, but that Blinking Mirror of hers is a freaking LIFESAVER. Wonder if they'll have another character doing the "zipping you off to places you've already been minus the travel time" thing?) The online bit is cool, but honestly I don't know how much I'm going to use that, considering how my computer is. ^_^;;; We'll see. Either way.... you guys probably won't be seeing much of me for a while starting next Tuesday. Depends on how long it takes for the "ZOMGSHINYNEWGAME!!!!" reaction to wear off. XD

Yes, I have it pre-ordered, and yes, I'm an immense dork. This should surprise no one.

4. Co-workers have been driving me up the WALL lately. Particularly this one guy in Pharmacy who thinks it's beneath him to write rain checks. Twice now he's come up to me when I'm trying to do ten thousand things at once, asking me to write a rain check for someone. Because "it's not what he went to school for!!" ...............................................................................................SOMEBODY in Pharmacy should be able to write a fucking rain check. IT'S NOT EXACTLY ROCKET SCIENCE, GUYS! Not to mention that both times, it ended up being an item that we couldn't write one for to begin with. But of course, checking that the item is actually the one on sale or isn't clearance is too difficult, because they didn't go to school for that, either. What am I thinking?

......there's a lot of rage there, clearly. I need a vacation. Hahahahaha. And now that I've had lunch (fries and clams, nomnomnom), I should probably get in the shower and start getting ready for work. *sigh*